YOU AND YOUR HEALTH

Research show that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation. Complaining is tempting because it feels good but like many other things that are enjoyable but dangerous like smoking, excessive drinking, are in themselves not good for you.

Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make future complaining more likely, over time you find it easier to be negative than to be positive regardless of what is happening around you. Complaining becomes your default behaviour and this changes people’s perception of you.

According to researchers from Stanford University, USA, complaining damages other areas of your brain as well. It shrinks the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is critical to problem solving and intelligent thought. It is also bad for your health. It is indeed not an overstatement that complaining damages the brain, it does not end there, when you complain, your body releases the stress to move the cortisol, which shifts you into fight-or flight mode, directing oxygen, blood and energy away from everything, but the systems that are essential to immediate survival.

Man is a social being so our actions and in-actions always affect one another in one way or the other so our complaining does not just affect only you but also those around you.

Your brains unconsciously mimic the moods of those around us, especially those we spend time with. As parents, teachers and care givers, there is need for us to curb this habit as it affects the children around us. The children tend to get into the mode of complaint freaks as well, that undermines their character formation, increases their ability to give excuses that results to poor performance both at school, home and at social gatherings. Children with this habit tend not to take responsibilities for their actions.

How then do we curb this dangerous habit? There are things to be done when you feel the need to complain: when you feel like complaining, shift your attention to something that you are grateful for. The second approach is complaining with a purpose and this becomes useful when you have something that is truly worth complaining. You should be able to do the following: (a) Does it have a clear purpose. (b) Start with something positive, be specific and deal with the issue and not the person, (c) End on a positive note.

On the Marble with Chika Obi

“Feeling confident is an important part of success. One way to boost your confidence is to allow mistakes. Don’t expect perfection. Instead, learn from your mistakes and forge ahead.”——Kristin Vickers Douglas.